A Story of Survival
by alwaysariyana
Summary: The account of Harry's personal journey towards redemption and the meaning behind survival. No pairings, some swearing. Companion piece in the making to explain the events explored in the journal.
1. Chapter 1

**When I was Invincible**

You come to know at a certain point that you are going to die. You cannot imagine why it comes when it does but the knowledge creeps up on you and wham; you know your time is running out.

Maybe it is because I have reached the lowest point in my life. I am alone, I have scared off all my friends and all of the adults in my life have betrayed me.

You see, I am not just a supposed hero, I am a boy. A boy who knows he will never have a chance to be a man. I have never felt carefree but right now, I can tell you, the world has turned against me and it is all because of that stupid prophecy that wannabe seer made. I mean why can she only have real prophesies about me I mean, every time I went to her class for three years she has told me I am going to die. Well someone should tell her I finally believe the old quack.

I know I am going to miss my friends the most because, well, they are the only family I have left. I won't put in any names just in case this falls into the wrong hands but they know who they are When I reflect upon the last six years, I remember all of the danger I have put them through. They might have followed me out of friendship but I am starting to believe that I let them follow out of selfishness.

Many people do not believe the prophecy and I do not blame them. I mean, it took me a year to come to terms that I was going to die. I have always had a sense of my own mortality for Merlin's sake; I am only 16 years old! You think that MAN could wait for me to grow up, don't you? No, I am not talking about He-Who-Scares-Me-To-Death but of He-Who-Thinks-He-Can-Run-My-Sorry-Life. Yes, I know some of you think he is the greatest wizard of the age but you don't see Him meddling in your life, do you? Well from the day that prophecy was made, he has tried to push me where I am unsure of going.

I must digress; this is not supposed to be a rant about Him, but more of a treatise on my life. I guess you could say our lives were intimately bound together by no will of my own.

As I grew up, I knew no one loved me. My aunt and uncle made sure I knew that. I was always different and they trod on me as if I wasn't even human. When I went to school, only then did I find out what true acceptance was and that came in the form of, you guessed it, my friends.

Who could ask for better ones? They never turned their backs on me willingly and only did when I made perfectly clear I didn't want them around. If only they had seen through my façade! As I am sitting here writing this, I feel as if a part of me is dying already. It must be that infernal hope that managed to stay alive despite all of the things in my first four years. I guess you could also say it was my fifth year when the light started going out. I remember my godfather and how much he loved life and I remember the day when I killed him. It was later that same day that I heard that forsaken prophecy.

Damn Him, damn them all!

I mean, why me? Why? Why does it always have to be me? I am just a boy! I do not want this responsibility. Give it to someone who cares! Give this damn world to someone who has something to live for! I mean I know that everyone thinks I am special but I am just me! I am not especially good at anything except getting the ones that I do love in danger. Take it back! I don't want this, I never wanted this. You, who are willing to let me die for everyone else, damn you! And you world, fuck you for ever believing that I cared because I don't! He-Who-Is-Evil can win because I am not fighting him. You hear me world? I WON"T BE YOUR SCAPEGOAT! It is up to you now.

I am not going to fight him for you world because . . . because . . . because I'm scared and I know in my heart that I am going to die because no matter what you say, I am not invincible.


	2. Chapter 2

**A Reason to Live**

The day my life changed inevitably was the day I finally let go of my childish prejudices towards the dark and all those who practiced it. Who was I to say that they were evil? Who decided the line between light and dark? Was it the corrupt government where anybody with enough money could buy their way out of a murder charge, or maybe it was the all-consuming Leader of the Light who only cared about solidifying his influence and forgot about the individual?

I was so scared when I went back to the Dursley's that summer. They have never treated me as a member of the family and I have never considered the house a home. I guess that was when it happened. The all powerful blood protections failed and I was once again alone. I was alone, without the oh-so-powerful headmaster there to protect me.

I knew it would not end well if I stayed where I was, so I snuck out. I the great and courageous Boy-Who-Lived ran away. Do you realize what it was like to be me? I am just 15 years of age, a month from 16 and I was constantly under surveillance and under attack before I could say stupefy. That night started the final stretch from the Boy-Who-Lived to what you have here.

I am not the same person. I never could be ever again. With every step I took towards my destiny, my heart tore and bled. I was not a boy whose innocence could be seen through the eyes, no I was a boy who could not even stand up straight for the burdens had become to heavy to bear.

But I haven't really told you anything yet. You might have seen a part of my soul, but you have come here to hear a story. A story about a boy, who loved and lost, but in the end survived.

The story starts not at the beginning because you all know that story or at least you think you do. What if I tell you that James Potter was not the glorified Auror who died for his family? What if I tell you he was a bully who tormented those weaker than him based upon the prejudices exemplified by the society we live in, would you believe me? Gryffindor and Slytherin, two houses raised to be proud but a mutual hatred shrouded any dignity they could have had.

Dignity is all we wizards have at the end of the day. There will always be someone who is more powerful than you, life in its very essence is not fair and we cannot expect it to be. We imitate the dance of death with others, because we are truly afraid of dying. We empathize with others because we know just what they fear. Death is not the next great adventure, the will to live is inherent and it what makes us get up in the morning. It is what gives a woman the extra power to lift a vehicle off her dying child; it is what saved a child from an unstoppable curse. The Will to Live is the greatest magic of all. It requires sacrifice, love, and above all determination.

I was the Golden Boy of Gryffindor. I embodied all the characteristics of the courageous lion, but they forgot that I was a snake in lion's clothing.

But I have lost everything. All of you do not realize just who and what I am. I am an orphan, my parents gone, my godfather recently deceased; I never even knew my family. Yet you think that I know love. The first sign of affection I have ever had was from my best friend's mother, a simple hug upon which I froze. So you see the reasons you give me to fight for the one's I love are false. Because those people are gone and my friends have left me when I pushed them away.

They thought I was Dark in the end. I guess through all the six years where I spent most of them fighting for them, dying for them, were not enough for them to believe in me. Yes I learned forbidden magic. Come on! I killed at age 11, I fought a Basillisk at age 12, I was ready to kill again at 13, and saw a friend die at 14. Then age 15 was the hardest year of my life where the last of my family was stripped away to leave me barren. I lived in a barren wasteland of fear and regret as pain washed over me. I felt each curse the dark lord through which tore apart each of my barriers. The barriers around my heart and soul broke with each shout of the Cruciatus curse. Forgive the smudges from the rain, for it is only the rain which has escaped through my heart.

You must forgive my lack of focus. I alluded before that I was not the same, what I meant to tell you was I am alone again. This grey expanse of wall before me is drenched with the screams of many. Their tears and blood have seeped through the stones to forever haunt my eyes. It is for them, the innocent, who the entire wizarding world condemned without understanding. Yes, there are those who are evil and should not be shown mercy. No I am talking about those that their story was ignored. Like Sirius, and many others whose innocence meant implicating those in higher power. Like Voldemort said in my first year power is not good or evil. It is the corruption which is prevalent in our society.

Do I have the courage to live again, without these grey walls about me? Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the recognition that there is something greater. Yes I am afraid of living, but there is so much pain. You see the eyes of a broken child that stands straight before the red eyes of evil, and oh such defiance even as their death approaches. What happened to me? I used to be like them. What happened to my arrogance to think that I was better than such evil before me?

I do not have the innocence that cloaked me before, but the knowledge that with great power comes great responsibility, and there are those who have shirked their responsibilities. Individual lives are important. My wand can't save everyone, but I can still protect those I love with one wand. Too bad those I love do not want me anymore.

I am the Boy-Who-Lived. My title, unofficial though it is, can still bring hope to those in need. I will fight for them, for those children who I do not want to be hurt like I was. To be left with uncaring relatives is the worst sort of damnation. I do not know if I am strong enough though. My body shrinks with each passing day, my breathing becomes labored, and my world has shrunk to the wall before me and this beautiful never-out quill resting gently in my hand. Maybe I can get someone else to write for me. I must laugh at that thought. They who condemned me, (who are they to do that?), give me, the traitor a scribe? Well, if they want the story they will.

My friends, maybe they can understand me a bit better now. I hope I have explained a little of the unexplainable which envelops my life. I am not invincible as you found out, but maybe I can be real to you and them.

Perhaps I can join the dead once I am done with my task. What a dream, a beautiful ideal, optimistic dream. For unless someone comes up to me a gives me a reason; that dream may soon become a reality.


	3. Chapter 3

**For Love and Freedom**

Drip, drip, drip that is all I hear. Screams have faded from my consciousness but for the screams which exist only within my soul. The visions are worsening. I can see them now every minute of my waking and sleeping life. All the pain, the blood, the torture appears so often that even without the dementors or visions I would see them in front of me.

The beating of my heart slowly ceases as I once again am pulled into a vision. It is my sixth year this time, when I finally managed to be alone.

Flashback

_"Harry! What are you up to?" asked Hermione._

_"Yeah, mate! We hardly see you anymore," Ron commented._

_Harry looked tiredly at his friends, his mouth drawn tightly with lines of fatigue clearly visible on his face. "I am up to nothing Ron, Hermione. I am just trying to survive, maybe graduate if I have the time."_

_"Stop being so melodramatic. Of course you have time Harry," Hermione scolded._

_"YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING. You think life will wait until I graduate? Do you think if I ask Voldemort nice to go and hang himself, he will? Both of you are in such a state of denial that you refuse to see the war that is sitting right in front of you with ME at the forefront."_

_"Leave it to Dumbledore, he will save us."_

_"There you two go again, Dumbledore this. Dumbledore that. I do not give a frickin' fig what Dumbledore will do because it is not him who is in danger of losing his FUCKING MIND! He is insane anyways. He asks me to give up everything to kill the monster and for what? YOU? Both of you have ignored me this past school year and you expect me to come running to either of you? Well, do you?"_

_Tears streaming from her eyes, she replied, "Well it is hard to not ignore someone who is never there. Where were you? I am scared Harry. Scared, that you are leaving us behind. Don't think I didn't notice the Dark Arts books you are reading. Harry those are bad for you! I don't want you turning out like Voldemort did. You can defeat him without the risks of the Dark Arts."_

_"Shut up Hermione. You know nothing. What am I going to do when I have to kill him? Laugh him to death? Tickle him? Maybe I should just walk up to him and hand him my wand because that is all the use I can get out of the supposed light arts. I do not need your criticism. Leave me alone"_

_"Fine, if that's the way you are going to be. I love you, Harry. I just don't know you anymore," Hermione cried before rushing off. Ron shook his head slowly before hurrying after him._

_End Flashback_

I am alone, always alone. I can feel tears running down my cheeks but they are slowly eating away at my soul. This place . . . this prison that holds me within its gates is slowly reaching through me to squeeze the lifeblood out of me; to murder any part of my soul that had been left. I know I promised to be here for them; but . . . but . . . I am so tired. Tired of all the lies, the half-truths, the misconceived notions of my evilness and supposed infallibility.

I must laugh here now. I must truly be a masochist for I am starting to enjoy the visions I get because it is the only time I can really think. Insanity is catching up for I am starting to talk to both this journal and the walls as if they were my friends. Just like when I was younger and I used to talk to all those nice little spiders in my cupboard. Nice little spiders, oh well now they are gone.

So without further ado, I am telling all of you to fuck off and leave me alone. You abandoned me when I needed you the most. You denied me the right to live my life, Boy-Who-Lived, yeah sure. It was more like the Boy-Who-Survived-To-Die-Insane-Betrayed-By-All. Well, I like long titles.

So I bid you Adieu, my ex-Comrades-in-Arms.

My dear Professor Snape if you shove that stick so far up you ass, no one will ever get it out.

Professor McGonagall, you must have drunk too much prune juice this morning for your lips seemed a bit pinched. Should I get you a bucket?

Dear Headmaster, the one who I say controlled it all. But in the end you didn't get me. That is my final revenge to you. Shame on you, my parents would have been disgusted. You do not have the right to lord over those children who come to you for guidance and send them on their own naïve, ignorant way. Go and bite a damn lemon drop, I hope Fawkes craps on them and you die.

To Voldemort, my dear rival: I must commend you on your dastardly plan but in the end I do not know if I really blame you. I think it is funny that you were really one of the only people I could count on to tell the truth. You hated me; you had to get rid of me; so you did. Good luck, there really is nothing standing in your way without me.

Finally enclosed is a copy of a letter to Ron and 'Mione. Please give it to them when you get the chance. It is charmed to only be opened by one of them when they are alone. Even in death, I shall await their coming with joyous tears and a promise to never let them go again.

So, for love and freedom, I go.

Farewell,

_Harold James Potter_

Son of Lily

Son of James

Godson of Sirius Black

**Lord Potter-Black**


End file.
